I shot this scene from my train on my way from Asahikawa to Wakkanai. This tiny village is called Otoineppu, which is one of the coldest villages in Japn.
I got to JR Wakkanai station at 10:56 PM, I photographed the station and around it for about 20 minutes and walked to my hotel.
At 11:27 pm I checked in to my hotel,and I took a quick shower and ate free noodle dinner. Then, I took a short night walk to Wakkanai dome.
it was extremely windy and cold there, my ears hurt and my hands went numb, so I could not use my tripod at the night.
I just shot everything handheld there, walked around the port for 10 minutes and then walked back to the station, but unfortunately the convenience store there was closed already.
And so I had to walk 20 minutes to find a 7-11 near Minami Wakkanai station. Then I took a taxi back to my hotel.
Miss the snow and snow storm and everything about Otoineppu and Wakkanai area of Hokkaido.
The coming death of Nikon as a camera company 4
In last week, I went up to Tsukuba university in Ibaraki prefecture for work and academic conference held at Epochal Tsukuba.
I attended a social study conference for 3 days there and I traveled there after that for 3 days. I think I went to Tokyo, Tsukuba, Tsuchiura, and Mito, which is the capital city of Ibaraki prefecture.
After this short academic trip to North East Kanto, Japan I realized the death of consumer camera market issue is more serious than we once thought. It was really bad, I think it is not the right time to discuss mirrorless vs DSLRs or iPhone, but it is really the time to discuss how to save this industry at any cost...........anyway to my surprise, I did not see or meet any one with a Sony A7X camera, which is supposed to be the most popular innovative camera currently available according to many silly online camera forums. It seemed as though I was the only one person in Tsukuba area of Ibaraki shooting a Sony A7R series body.......to me it was really shocking.
I met a couple of American researchers from UC something at Tsukuba university, and one of them climbed a middle sized mountain together with me and he had 2 m43( GX80 and EM5MK2) and Fuji X-Pro2. And he let me try his new Panasonic G80, I actually liked it, found it very intuitive.
I think the puny Sony cameras I have are not very well suited for both urban documentary of my academic travels and mountain hiking climbing........Most of photographers I met in Tsukuba mountain complex area of Tsukuba had either a Canon 5D something or a m43 or a Fuji. My coworker said ," it was really surprising but no one other than us had a Sony, how come?"
Well it is nothing surprising since I know Sony Alpha 7 series cameras are not selling well in real world outside of camera forums. They are only popular among those camera fanatic forum denizens like us...........
But the maybe more shocking reality to those of us long time Nikon shooter is that no one seems to be shooting Nikon any more and even in a big anti Nuclear demo I encountered near Kasumigaseki station no one using Nikon due to the poor LV and video performance of all Nikon FX bodies. Also many many guys shooting the demo told me the excessively loud shutter sound of Nikon DSLRs would make the cops really irritated or even angry.
I guess Nikon is rapidly becoming kind of an irrelevant player here in Japan , no longer a rival of Canon but seems really like a rival of Ricoh.......Nikon really needs serious Fullframe or APS-C mirrorless system with silent shutter, or Nikon may have to go bankrupt very very soon.
Now the D5600 is out and I have tested it at a trade show here, and I confirmed its LV AF speed is a tiny bit faster than the D500 or anything from Nikon since 2011, but still no where near the level of Canon dual Pixel AF or Fuji X-T2 or Panasonic GX8 or G85, let alone the GH5 or the current fastest mirrorless champion the Olympus EM1 MK2.
We all know that just a few months back, no Nikon fanboys admitted the fact Nikon might be losing the game and they insisted on there would never be a mirrorless camera that would rival the D500 in AF and overall speed............but now it seems all changing rapidly. The game has changed and Nikon seems unable to adapt to the new rules set by Sony, Olympus, Panasonic and Fuji..........it seems like Nikon has been and will be the most vulnerable one of the major consumer camera makers if not the all time biggest loser of this industry.
Nikon is extremely slow to change: Which one is the next Samsung NX, the Nikon F or the Pentax K mount?
I think the camera manufacturer's dilemma is manifold and maybe very complicated.
•On the low end, many folks either bought their first and last ILC, or are happy with their smartphones. I can't count how many times non photo related friends have pulled me to the side walk to show me photos out of their smartphones they thought were impressive (and viewed on the smartphones they def were), or who have contorted their faces and made a "haven't seen one of those in a while" comment (especially on my A7X cameras) and other FF cameras.
I realize that regardless of form factor or sensor format, an interchangeable lens system is huge to most of NORMAL people, they think it is simply annoying or even embarrassing to carry them.
•On the high end, cameras are so good it is hard to justify upgrading. We are bumping the limits of quantum efficiency and read noise with cameras like the D810, A7R2, A7M2,A6500, X-T2,X-T20, EM1MK2, GH5, etc. We are NOT going to see another stop of improvement in IQ as we have been every couple of years.
•Across the board, the second hand market is beyond robust now. My local friend proudly said, "I am kind of ashamed to say it, but I don't plan to ever buy a new camera again. Why should I?" Eventually the camera I want will fall to the price I like, so I always wait that to happen. And while lenses tend to hold their value better, they are still just as abundant and available at an appreciable discount. He also said,"Hey you know most of less prominent pros still using their 5DMK2 today,anyway".
I don't know his 5DMK2 comment but I have seen absolutely stunning images made out of it here at Flickr and 500pix, so I guess more business minded pros still use the venerable 5DMK2. So I guess the real biggest enemy to the latest and greatest cameras is the second hand market and market saturation not the Apple or Google phones at least in serious camera market.
The most changes improvements we see in the camera market are now coming from Mirrorless guys. In D-SLR market what I expect to see next is what I call simplification of the lowest end D-SLRs by simply removing the mirror. The next Rebel 1xxx and D3xxx probably won't have a viewfinder at all like Nikon Canon version of the Pentax K1 but with a bit better set of features ,espesically on video. I expect Canon's next Rebel T something mirrorless to be announced at CP+ or NBA show in this coming spring.
I also expect to see some A7 fighting FF MILCs from Canon and Nikon to slot under the D750/5D, and many A7X users will move back to Canon Nikon since many of us are just tired of the shitty mount adapter crap,especially those Metabones. But beyond that, what's left? Do we really need a Canon 90D or a Nikon D7300, especially with the APS-C OVF? There may be one more gen of the middle end APS-C bodies to load up all the features that should have been standard long ago (i.e. articulating screens, OSPDAF, proper 4k video mode, etc), but beyond that... I can see development cycles stretching out further and further every year, like signals from a ship approaching the event horizon of a singularity. IMO the camera industry has already crossed the boundary of no return, failing to adapt with a rapidly changing market, failing to control inventory and meaningless discounts, failing to listen to the actual long term customers, failing to get better QC, and front loading a lot of their sales, sacrificing retailers along the way. And as Nikon is really a camera only company, there is no hope for them and I don't see them survive through this difficult time any longer than 3 more years. They are reported to have lost a several million on the last D750 recall, and another several million on the D500 battery recall, another several million on the DL CPU issue(now the DL is delayed again and rumored to be announced at CP+ show in Yokohama in Feb 2017). And how much did they already lose on the D600/610 before the D750, the D500, the D800 and the DL?
But who cares? Even after Nikon dies, maybe some one takes the mount over, even if no one takes over that mount, there will be strong second-hand market and people can buy that...
IMO, the real problem here is the rapid contraction of the market will definitely increase the average prices for the mid to low end cameras and that force many hobby users to call it quits. And this will force the camera makers to increase the already super high price even higher............So several years from now average people cannot afford any serious camera of the A7R2 or the 5DMK4 class body..........and they may be,like my friends , hunting for a bargain in second hand market.
Finally, I am very uncomfortable when I read some one say "CaNikon or Canon Nikon"and put them in the same group. They are not in the same league and not even competing in the same market category according to Tokyo stock exchange categorization rule and Yahoo Japan financial report:
Nikon is listed in Nikkei mechanics and precision category, while Canon is in electronics, security and medical category. So unlike the common forum belief that Nikon and Canon are rivals, they are not competing , and in fact not even in the same category by stock exchange categorization rules, and perhaps even more importantly Canon is actually 17 times bigger than Nikon by total revenue. So they are not rivals. Even their respective mirrorless related patents show that they are very different, Nikon is more similar to Pentax than to Canon by any mean.
Pentax and Nikon are very similar in size, in total number of mirrorless related patents, etc. And I am sure both Pentax and Nikon will die out very soon, but the question is which one is the next Samsung in this business? I bet on Nikon, but I am sure many disagree.
PS. Nikon should release DL2 series at the coming CP+ show instead of the already dated original DL series that was announced in the last Feb at the same CP+ show but never actually released.
The year-old original DL series cameras have already lost the momentum they once had and they seem to have been already outdated even before the actual launch in this coming March.
UPDATE: Many people including myself thought Nikon is dying, if not already dead by now, but in reality Nikon still sells many many more units than Sony and Nikon is now working on new type of sensor design and they may collaborate with Pentax and Olympus to set up a new sensor company. If this plays out well, then Sony will be the loser since they will have no one to sell their mediocre so-called Fullframe sensors any more. And as a result their highend camera prices will go up significantly.
And now Sony has just announced they've just decided to spin off their imaging division and now it is an independent business under Sony corp's supervision, just like their sensor group.....
This means now Sony imaging is not a part of Sony but their subsidiary, and therefore, to Sony device group, the imaging group is just a customer,nothing special, in fact,considering its size of market share in relation to that of Nikon, Sony imaging group is a lower class customer to the device group.
So there is no more reason for Sony device technology to keep the best sensor for in-house use. In fact now Sony device tech must compete with the new sensor company Nikon Olympus Ricoh have just established here and some European sensor designers such as CMOSIS, who makes the Leica SL sensor and M sensor.
And do not forget there is always Canon if Sony does not sell anything to Nikon.........Canon will start selling it and there will be Panasonic and Tower Jazz also........so Nikon will not have any problem choosing sensor suppliers any more.
Sony must sell their best sensors to Nikon, Olympus, and Pentax , or Sony will lose them, Sony cannot choose customers any more.
If Sony is smart, it will not compete with Nikon or Olympus in camera market. After all, Nikon is the biggest customer of Sony.......but Sony also buys steppers from Nikon anyway. So Sony is not dominating the sensor market, or controlling Nikon as many Sony fanboys think..........and the just announced Spun-off of their imaging division makes Sony camera business less trust-worthy........... Sony thinks every business as a short term investment and runs it to make it temporarily profitable and then spins it off.
After that? of course sells it to anyone willing to buy it.........like Sony did with the Vaio PC business, TV business, etc,etc.
That is why no one really trust Sony in the long run, we long term Sony users just use its cameras but always know it is a back-up plan or step-gap solution......
After all no serious camera buyers are as obtuse as many spec-chasers and review sites think they are. None one buys into a big expensive camera system just for an amazing set of features in a body or two...................there are many many more important aspects to a system camera than just a set of great features...
UPDATE2: Nikon Df2 is coming soon and it will house 24mp sensor but a newer generation chip that Nikon designed or developed and produced by Renasus electronics.
It basically has the feature set of the D750 but in smaller more compact body with the classic camera style controls, which I hate. I am not sure about video feature but it sounds like getting FHD video at 25, 30, 60 p and i , nothing special.
It will also have the best OVF in any digital era camera with new focus screen.....but it is really too anachronistic now and I think Nikon needs to put a decent EVF, rather than an amazing OVF from film era. The price will be a bit more expensive than the current Df was when it was announced in 2014, and I heard that it will be about 25 percent more expensive than the D810 was at its launch price.
So I think it will be over 3k.
UPDATE3: Now the DL series is officially canceled and we dealers the biggest victims of it.
Anyway, now there are some Japanese analysts guessing(more like speculating) Nikon is in the process of planned bankruptcy, I am not sure about if it is the case but it actually makes very much sense as we carefully follow what Nikon has done since the 2011 Thai flood.
Nikon has produced nothing really innovative but all crappy flawed camera products that needed a few recalls or modifications to finally actually work as advertised. The D600 had terrible dust issue, the D750 had a several serious mirror related issues and Nikon has issued a several recalls for that.
The D800 and E had shutter, mirror and left AF issue but Nikon has never admitted it.
Now the DL disaster.
I am sure the CEO is incompetent but at least not as stupid or obtuse as he seems to be, and he is a person from Tochigi Nikon (precision group) and he has been said to be always hating the imaging group, and thus carefully planning the best(actually worst) way for Nikon to go out of the imaging business, just make some red financial reports a few times then the shareholders ask him to decide finally shutting down the imaging group, that is what many analysts here begin to report now.
Nikon is struggling we all know about it but it is not as bad as the many medias try hard to make it out to be, actually far from it. So I initially thought the prediction of the planned bankruptcy of the company or at least the imaging group ridiculous, but now I think it may be the case, other wise, it is really hard to explain this 50 billion loss Nikon has reported for the last quarter now as the final loss of the imaging group.
UPDATE4: At CP+ show in Yokohama, Nikon has just announced that Nikon is actually in the midst of a full audit and review of every product line and therefore they choose not to show anything really new at the show(they did not use the exact wording but we interpreted it this way). Nikon has also announced they would focus most of their resources on their highend FX line D-SLRs in the market and new lines(not just one)highend mirrorless systems(they used the term "Advanced ILC system") systems....(sounds like a more than one new system and one has the F mount and the other has a new mount). They want to complete the new lines of mirrorless systems by 2020.
But if possible and all situations allow it, they want to announce the very first model of the new lines of highend advanced camera systems by before this summer- this July Nikon will actually become 100 years old. So it may be announced as a part of their 100 year anniversary celebration in this summer.
